This invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for automatically winding an adhesive ribbon-like material, and more particularly to a method of and an apparatus for automatically winding a ribbon-like material, which consists of unvulcanized rubber-impregnated textile cords, around a drum for building a reinforcement belt for pneumatic radial tires.
In a certain kind of a pneumatic radial tire, both end portions of reinforcement belts B of steel cords inserted in a tread portion T are held with belt covering layers L of textile cords extending at a cord angle of substantially zero degree with respect to the circumferential direction of the tire as shown in FIG. 6. Owing to these belt covering layers L thus holding both end portions of the reinforcement belts B, the radially outward rising of the end portions of the reinforcement belts, which is ascribed to the centrifugal force occurring by a high speed rotation of the tire, can be prevented, so that the high-speed durability of the tire is improved.
In one of the methods of forming such a reinforcement belt structure, reinforcement belts are wound around a building drum, and then a continuous ribbon-like material consisting of unvulcanized rubber-impregnated textile cords is wound spirally around the reinforcement belts by using a winder, so as to form belt covering layers L.
However, this method requires troublesome operations, such as an operation for cutting the ribbon-like material and an operation for sticking the cut end portions of the ribbon-like material on the reinforcement belts on the building drum every starting and terminating of the winding. According to such a prior art method of this kind, the cutting of the ribbon-like material and the sticking of the end portions thereof on the reinforcement belts on the building drum are all done manually. Therefore, the cut positions of the ribbon-like material and the stuck positions of the end portions thereof vary greatly every tires, and adversely affect the quality of the tires. This results in decreasing the efficiency of operations and the productivity of the tires.